Lost Lives In The Lands Of Ice

Alice and Arnica were 2 young sisters who came to Russia along with their pets for some work but one day to buy some supplies they had to cross a forest where they discovered something that they shouldn't have. A thing that could put their life on stake. What was that? Did they died? Or were they able to escape it? What happened to their pets?

"Hi my name is Alice. Its 11:00 am and we are going to buy some supplies from the market and here is my cute pet Sniffer to accompany me." 

"Stop it at once Alice and get into the car." Arnica ordered me. 

Arnica was 4 years older than me and was my sibling. But this time I wasn't alone as today I have the company of my pet dog "Sniffer" and Arnica's dog "Momo". Sniff is a golden retriever and Momo is my cutie pomeranian. They both are 1 year old as we bought them together. Apart from this I've also kept my camera to capture the beauty of nature as my phone was damaged by my naughty neighbour.

"So here we are on our way to the market and to reach there we need to cross a proud and perilous road." I usually film like this to collect memories.

"Sir please be calm. We are doing our work." We heard some noise coming from a distance and then we got to know that there was a whole lot traffic jam because of the snow.

"Come on, let's go." Arnica said. "But where and how we will go? There is a whole lot traffic here." I asked her.

"There is another way to get there which passes through a forest. We will use that." She replied.

I wondered how she came to know about so many things. Two months ago we came to Russia for some work but I think so even 2 months are enough for all that stuff. But whatever the case maybe, we will pass through a forest, and forest means adventure. There are so many things which can be discovered in the most unseen places.

It was 11:30 am. Arnica was driving and our pets were at the back. I was sitting next to the driver's seat so wasn't allowed to sleep. Even there was nothing exciting when we were travelling through the woods. I was very disheartened, so to refresh my mood I started reading one of my favourite book "The World Of Mythical Creatures" which contained information about all sorts of mythical beings. I had just started reading it when the ground started shaking and before we could understand anything, were washed away by a huge wave of silvery, glittery snow towards the steep side of the road and thud!!! Everything suddenly became dark.

I didn't knew from how many hours I was lying there unconscious but when I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was a golden hairy thing brushing against my face. I realised it was Sniff. His cheerful face always makes me forget all my worries but I was having a terrible headache at that time and to make the matters worse I founded that my half body was buried in the snow. Somehow I came out with the help of Sniff. The weather was a bit more cold than usual. Although it wasn't snowing but the cool, chilli winds were cold enough to freeze our blood. I saw my watch, "2:00 pm!! I've been lying here in snow for 2 and half hours!!" I searched everywhere but wasn't able to find any of them and then I realised it was a landslide because of which we all split in this forest. "Wait forest, where is the forest? There are mountains all around. But there weren't any mountains on our way!! Where are we??" I said to myself. It seemed like we were in a different corner of the world. I didn't had anything through which I could connect with my sister. I hoped that we could find some locals from whom we could ask for help but after walking 2 hours straight my hope was dying. "Sniff, I hope she could find us. I hope they are safe." I said to Sniff as I sat down on a small rock and Sniff came beside to comfort me. We were sitting near a lake and there was neither sign of trees nor houses and the sky was a bit different. It was just 4:00 pm but the sky was darker as compared to other days. At that very moment I heard the noise of cracking of ice coming from the lake and then what we saw from our mortal eyes wasn't normal at all.

There was a giant monster with a long tail in front of us. It's eyes were shining in the dark and was about 20-30 feet long in height. 

My heartbeat almost stopped by seeing it, but from God's grace it hadn't seen us yet, but I think had already smelled the presence of blood. So before it could see us we decided to run away but at that very moment Sniff stepped on the camera and a loud sound of flash was made. I didn't realised when my camera fell from my bag which I was carrying to the market. and now you could have imagined what happened next.

The moment that creature saw us it made a loud scream and moved it's long tail towards us to capture. We were so afraid to see all this and ran so fast that we didn't realised that the monster was left behind until I fell on the ground. At that time we both breathed a sigh of relief. Sniff came near me as if saying, "Thank God. We are safe."

I got up to dig out that half-buried thing and when I dug it out I saw it was my book about mythical beings. I accidentally opened the section of "Loch Ness Monster."

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"Paleontologist have discovered the remains of an ancient Loch Ness Monster look alike in freezing Antarctica. The prehistoric plesiosaur- a - four flippered marine reptile that lived during the dinosaur age - measured a colossal 36 feet (11 metres) long from snout to tail, about as long as long as a modern telephone pole. It weighed nearly 15 tons when it was alive. Researchers discovered the fossils of the enormous plesiosaur on Antarctica's Seymour island in 1989 and........"

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Some part of book got damaged.

"Wait..wait..wait. Remains of an ancient Loch ness monster discovered in Antarctica. But this is Russia. Are we in Antarctica? Is there some sort of teleportation portal? Why these monsters are here? Are we being teleported by a landslide?" There were a lot of questions in my mind at that time. But it wasn't the right time to think about them. We need to find a safe place. Another sad thing was that, that if it was Antarctica then we would have to face several continuous nights.

It was around 8:00 pm, we haven't found anyone yet and we both were hungry. Thank God I had some sandwiches and some water bottles in my bag. The water haven't frozen yet. I and Sniff, we both had half sandwich so as to save our supplies for the future. 

We were still walking when the cold, chilli, winds along with snow started. At a distance I saw a huge cave ladened with ice. To protect ourselves from this harsh weather we decided to take shelter in it. We went inside. I sat down and took the support of a rock. The wind speed have increased drastically and was making a loud noise as it hit the entrance of the cave. Sniff reacted to it by starting barking. I assured him that there was nothing to be worried about and we are safe here. It was not more than 15 minutes that the cave started shaking vigorously and without wasting a single second we made each and every effort to protect ourselves from the falling rocks and to escape that cave. 

Huh!! We were breathing heavily as we saw the cave collapse and having no shelter to protect us. Our only hope was destroyed but we were happy that we escaped it as we saw the cave transforming into a huge beast burning with lava but covered with ice, standing on 4 legs having 4 or 5 sharp nails in each, 3 spikes on his body and a huge big broad tail. This beast was a bit different than the previous one. It doesn't seemed that it will harm us but we were so afraid of all the things we have encountered yet that we considered it best to run and hide away, and so hid behind the giant rocks. I opened my book and searched for it, and after a couple of seconds I found it. It was Ice/Lava Beast. It's description:- 

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"Also called Ghaskrago, it is a reverse of normal reptiles. Rather than sun bathing to maintain their body temperature like a normal cold-blooded reptile would. It must stay high up in the mountains to keep its body temperature low."

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 "Why do they give only scraps of information??"

We hid there for a while and were about to escape that stormy weather, but...Thump!! Thump!! I heard a brassy sound coming from the direction of lake. "It must be that Loch Ness Monster...Not again..."

The noise stopped after sometime....and everything became silent. We were only able to hear the raging sound of wind, forcefully hitting the giant rocks and making an unpleasant sound. The snow had stopped but not the wind. No longer to resist my temptation, I peeped from behind the rock to see what's going on behind.

Nothing was visible to miles and miles away except the thick sheet of ice and a couple of giant rocks. But at a distance there was a dried ice tree which was emitting a bright red light from inside its single hollow. "Strange, maybe I'm a bit sleepy that's why I'm not able to see clearly." I thought. It even didn't matched with any of the creature so I peeped again but this time it had disappeared and I was shocked. As I turned back but...what's that!!!

"Aaaa....!!!! Now I will never go near a tree. Come on Sniff, runn!!!!..."

I would help you imagine what horrifying thing I saw that made my feet numb.

It was a giant creature, piercing the raging wind and coming towards us. It was about 10-15 feet tall, had a deer like face but wasn't cute. It had 2 big antelopes on his head and those hungry eyes were fixed upon us. It's knife like sharp teeth were coming out of it's mouth. It was standing on two legs and it's hands stretched till it's feet. It's hands had three fingers with sharp nails and it had a very thin layer of skin on it, although it's neck, and legs were all covered with black fur. But it's ribs area looked as if it's flesh had been half decomposed and was blackish bloody in colour. It's 2 long ears were stretching in both the directions to sense the presence of prey and enemies. But who would like to be an enemy of such a creature.

We ran away from there like a horse with full speed, but our efforts were all in vain because it had an inhuman speed which couldn't be beaten, which meant that within a couple of seconds we would become it's food. My eyelids were becoming heavy and heavy and that creature was still behind. But I didn't had the courage to now move even a single step. I could feel my heart running like an express train. That monster had almost caught and eaten us up if my leg hadn't twisted. We fell in a pit which gave us a moment to breath. I tried to control my heavy breathing and coughing so that it couldn't sense us. But I was still not sure whether this idea would work or not because of it's long and broad nose that stretched forward.

I founded it was a Wendigo.

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"A wendigo is a tremendous cannibal monster, covered in ice that stalks winter night and live in forests."

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"Wendigoes live in forests. Now where is the forest? Shhh!!! It is coming near." We saw the sprinkles of snow falling from the edge of the pit upon us. The ground was still shaking when we heard a harsh, shrill scream and after that, that monster went in it's direction. After 5 minutes of silence I finally decided to send Sniffer on the surface to help me come out with the help of rope as he was a good jumper. It was a bit risky but we didn't had any option, as if we will stay there for long, chances are that wendigo would find us and it would eat each and every part of our body with it's sharp teeth. I opened my bag and, "Oh no! The rope is missing. I must have lost it in the landslide." I felt like crying at that time, even if Sniff escaped from the pit I wouldn't be able to come out as it was too deep. Leaving Sniff alone on its own on the surface would be like giving invitation to his death. Either way we both would die. We had lost more than half of our strength. Sniff came in my lap and we both comforted each other. It felt like our last time of our life when something heavy fell on my head.

"Oouch! What's that."

It was a rope!! Yeah!!! I lifted my head and saw it was Arnica and Momo!!

They both were safe. " Come on Miss drama, grab that rope and come up." She taunted me in a funny way. 

I was the last one who reached the surface. I told her everything about what we had encountered yet and even asked her where she was during all this time and she said, "It's not time to discuss all this. We need to leave this place within an hour or else..."

We felt an earthquake beneath our feet. We left that place and Arnica led us to one of the mightiest mountain where she showed me a secret tunnel leading to the other side of the mountain. We made our way through that and discovered a secret forest in whose middle a doorway was there which could send us back to our place. While walking through the forest I asked her about how did she came to know all this. She smiled and answered, "After gaining my senses, I found that I was on a mighty mountain ladened with snow when I suddenly saw a creature coming out of nowhere. I hid and waited for the right moment to come out and then I remembered a myth which an old man told me when I was way back home." "What! A myth", I was curious. "Yes a myth", she sounded very serious. "It was the time of 18th century when the order in the society was disturbed by a group of thieves. There was no place where people could keep their valuables safe. As time passed, they committed more and more sins and became dangerous murderers. To get rid of them people called a wise old man who had solved many problems because of his sharp mind. He told that group about a secret gateway in a forest behind which they could find so much of gold and jewels that they would never have to steal anything. Those murderers were servants of their own greed and went into the forest when all of a sudden they were captured by a mysterious mist. When they gained their senses, they found themselves in the lands of ice and as they were there for a long time, they were transformed into monsters. To seek their revenge from humans they kill everyone who cross that gateway."

"Oh! So that's why they are behind us to seek their revenge and to fill up their stomachs, isn't." I asked her. "Exactly" she replied.

"But why they hadn't went back through that gateway?" I questioned her again. "Because once transformed into a monster a person cannot go back to its place. Otherwise they would have already destroyed half of the mankind..." she stopped when we heard some grunting noise coming from the forest and we hid ourselves behind the trees. "Trees!! No..." I thought, but then Arnica assured me that they weren't monsters. At a distance we saw the gateway through which we could return back but near it was a wendigo, doing spells on stones and rocks and throwing it on the door to destroy it. And once it got destroyed we would never be able to return back. We saw an empty space in the door, maybe for the key and then Arnica told me, "The key looks like a stone but it's colour had faded over time as it had been displaced from its place."

 I listened carefully. Although it didn't knew about the key, but that brainless creature kicked it off and we didn't knew where it got disappeared in the air. So we made a plan. Arnica and Sniff will distract it and I and Momo will find the key. But that creature, instead of going behind her, came behind me. All wasted. We would have nearly died if Arnica hadn't found the key on time which was trapped between the rocks. How? Because when she inserted the key, it radiated a strong beam of light which made these monsters asleep for a while and we made use of that "while" and finally succeeded in escaping that place. When we came back we founded that 2 days had already passed. We hurried back to our home by our car and at night after dinner she asked me, "Hey! Would you like to go into the woods again." I shouted, "Never....."